FOSSFA URGES AFRICAN GOVERNMENTS TO PARTICIPATE MORE EFFECTIVELY IN THE DEBATE
ON OPEN STANDARDS
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| FOSSFA encourages African governments to facilitate the debate on Open
| Standards, and involve national experts in decisions regarding technology
| standards. The organization also urged African governments to seek a
| collective African voice prior to taking positions on Open Standards issues.
| Recalling that the last Ballot Re-count Meeting had very little
| representation from Africa, and that African countries voted in the
| affirmative without thorough and more inclusive discussions on the issues,
| FOSSFA strongly calls for more active public engagement of the issues in the
| future.
|
| Further, FOSSFA believes that governments should pay particular attention to
| procurement practices, especially software agreements between it and software
| companies. In this regard, FOSSFA noted that the practice of binding a
| sovereign country to agreements based on non-disclosable memorandums of
| understanding is not open, contravenes the principles and values of
| transparency in public procurement, and must be stopped.
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http://appablog.wordpress.com/2008/03/22/fossfa-urges-african-governments-to-participate-more-effectively-in-the-debate-on-open-standards/
Recent:
SA minister slams software patents
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| In a taped address for the Idlelo 3 conference, Fraser-Moleketi said
| that “open standards are a critical factor in building interoperable systems
| that are important to governments … In South African we have a document - the
| minimum interoperability standards - which includes the use of open document
| format or ODF.”
|
| Fraser-Moleketi pointed out that ODF was adopted as an ISO standard in 2006.
| She said that it was “unfortunate that the leading vendor of proprietary
| office software, which enjoys considerable dominance in the market, chose not
| to participate and support ODF in its products but rather to develop its own
| competing document standard, which is now also awaiting judgement in the ISO
| process.
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http://www.tectonic.co.za/?p=2304
Related:
South Africa adopts ODF as govt standard
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| The South African government yesterday announced the adoption of OpenDocument
| Format (ODF) as a standard for government communications.
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http://www.tectonic.co.za/view.php?id=$id&src=digg
Africa: 'Microsoft is Imperialistic' Says Open Source Advocates
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| Microsoft Corporation's products have been locked out of the
| on-going World Social Forum (WSF) in Nairobi Kenya.
|
| With over 300 computers provided for participants and the press,
| organizers of the WSF have preferred to provide open source
| software products and blocked all Microsoft related products for
| the forum's usage and its related activities.
|
| [...]
|
| Activists at the forum also believe that since Microsoft is a
| corporate brand from the United States of America, a country
| they believe has intentions of maintaining the status quo of
| a unipolar world over which it is above international law and
| the UN, the brand should be locked out.
|
| [...]
|
| "The open source movement is providing Linux, a robust free
| software. Everybody owns it and it can be shared. And this
| is what WSF is all about - a free society, a movement
| fighting for ownership of free resources" he adds.
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http://allafrica.com/stories/200701230831.html
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